A Quick Summary of the recent JP Articles

[mbncd]

- They (somewhat) ended up changing the map/layouts of the three cities after all.

I'm pretty sure we've already seen the Grid Aetherits in the middle of buildings and they also said something like they wanted to make it easier to get around or something so not surprised by this at all.

- Depending on how one raises one's chocobo, what they can wear in equipments will also be different. (ex: If you raise it as a mage-type chocobo, then it can wear mage gear; if you raise it as a tank, it can wear tank gear, etc)

It looks like chocobos don't get to benefit from our armoury system o.o

- Hamlet will undergo a complete revamp. It will no longer be the 'closed' type content it currently is. The reason why it's the way it is the current version is due to 1.0 limitations. In ARR they can finally implement a more open-style content, which is what they originally wanted to do.

When they were originally talking about Hamlet, I got the impression it was something you could do on the fly, which to me means with or without a party that does not require a private instance so anyone can join at any time. Hopefully that's what it will be like, where you can just wander in and join whatever is already going on there at the time without having to organise a whole group for it. Maybe have more or less enemies and friendly NPC reinforcements spawn depending on how many are taking part at that moment or something and just base your score on how much you did while you were there (say, how many items you made/found or how many enemies you killed over half an hour or something?). That would also encourage less people to rely on having one person to do all the provisioning work done, if everyone had to do some to improve their ratings.

- Monster AI will operate under a FFXII-style 'gambit'-type system. Likewise, Chocobo AIs will operate under something similar.

This I like ^_^ I don't particularly care about the monsters, always kinda figured they probably worked on something like this already, but my path companion was useless because I couldn't tell him who to attack or anything. He was a tank but running around the other side of the field while I got pummelled like the weak squishy I was... Yay for well trained chocos! I actually asked in the latest live letter questions thread if we could have something like this (even referring to gambits specifically) so really glad that either I gave them the idea or we're thinking on the same page :3 I've kinda felt we've been thinking on the same page since my name was mentioned in the 2.0 advertising ("the crystal dreams") XD I know, I'm an idiot, but I have fun ;P

- Depending on what class you start as, your starting city will be locked to where that class' guild is located. (ex: If you start off as a MRD, you start in Limsa)

I don't like this at all... I'm very attached to my home city of Limsa and to my GC of the Maelstrom. I'm pretty sure I started the game with the conjurer class though so does that mean I'll have my home city change to Gridania? I find that being in a certain GC is very closely linked with supporting that city so if that happened I'd feel a strong need to join the Adders. I don't like Grid or the Adders, I want to stay with the pirates! Also, this kinda goes against the armoury system and I really don't think the two should be connected. Choosing to play level 1 as some class should not restrict your location options. You can change your class by changing weapon/tool (and are often encouraged to do so) but I doubt you can change your starting city so easily. Maybe give us some minor advantage for choosing the same city as our starting city is in (like a weak ring that gives stats beneficial to that class) but don't restrict us to it. If we have to choose a main class when we go to 2.0, I'm choosing ACN so that I can stay in Limsa!

[NoctisUmbra]

I don't like this at all... I'm very attached to my home city of Limsa and to my GC of the Maelstrom. I'm pretty sure I started the game with the conjurer class though so does that mean I'll have my home city change to Gridania? I find that being in a certain GC is very closely linked with supporting that city so if that happened I'd feel a strong need to join the Adders. I don't like Grid or the Adders, I want to stay with the pirates! Also, this kinda goes against the armoury system and I really don't think the two should be connected. Choosing to play level 1 as some class should not restrict your location options. You can change your class by changing weapon/tool (and are often encouraged to do so) but I doubt you can change your starting city so easily. Maybe give us some minor advantage for choosing the same city as our starting city is in (like a weak ring that gives stats beneficial to that class) but don't restrict us to it. If we have to choose a main class when we go to 2.0, I'm choosing ACN so that I can stay in Limsa!

I'm pretty sure this is in reference to new players. They mentioned how the armoury system was going to be locked until you finished the starting series of quests that would get you to about level 10 on the class you picked to start as. It only makes sense for you to be in the city that the guild is in. I'm willing to bet that the starting quests differ based on the class you start as... at least to a small degree.

Also, they had mentioned that the GC you chose later on would essentially represent your city-state affinity, not where you started. So essentially right now if someone started in Limsa but is part of the Immortal Flames, their character data shows exactly that. In ARR however, they will only be affiliated with Ul'Dah's Immortal Flames. No throwback to Limsa just because that character happened to start there.

[Cynthis]

I'm pretty sure this is in reference to new players. They mentioned how the armoury system was going to be locked until you finished the starting series of quests that would get you to about level 10 on the class you picked to start as. It only makes sense for you to be in the city that the guild is in. I'm willing to bet that the starting quests differ based on the class you start as... at least to a small degree.

Also, they had mentioned that the GC you chose later on would essentially represent your city-state affinity, not where you started. So essentially right now if someone started in Limsa but is part of the Immortal Flames, their character data shows exactly that. In ARR however, they will only be affiliated with Ul'Dah's Immortal Flames. No throwback to Limsa just because that character happened to start there.

I started a discussion about something related in LS the other day. Where will all the 1.xx players end up in the new world? Will we all teleport to the same place and make our way into the world from there, will we end up in our originally chosen city or just randomly appear somewhere on the map with certain limitations to not trap some poor adventurer behind a L99 mob. I would hope to arrive in AAR in my adopted hometown.

[alexhatesmil]

I started a discussion about something related in LS the other day. Where will all the 1.xx players end up in the new world? Will we all teleport to the same place and make our way into the world from there, will we end up in our originally chosen city or just randomly appear somewhere on the map with certain limitations to not trap some poor adventurer behind a L99 mob. I would hope to arrive in AAR in my adopted hometown.

I imagine we'll start off in our home cities.

[mbncd]

I started a discussion about something related in LS the other day. Where will all the 1.xx players end up in the new world? Will we all teleport to the same place and make our way into the world from there, will we end up in our originally chosen city or just randomly appear somewhere on the map with certain limitations to not trap some poor adventurer behind a L99 mob. I would hope to arrive in AAR in my adopted hometown.

I kinda figured we'd have a cutscene after going to a shielded area, see Dalamud hit and game over sort of thing; then we'd still be in the same place once 2.0 arrives and get a little cutscene of coming out of the protection and just observing the mess left behind and then the game starts. Main storyline or minor quests might involve taking care of the aftermath of that at the start, etc.

[Felis]

I'm pretty sure we've already seen the Grid Aetherits in the middle of buildings and they also said something like they wanted to make it easier to get around or something so not surprised by this at all.

If you mean the place during the gamescom video, it was camp bentbranch

It looks like chocobos don't get to benefit from our armoury system o.o

I hope we can raise a set of many different chocobos ^^
And I hope we can use All-purpose Dyes on them later

I started a discussion about something related in LS the other day. Where will all the 1.xx players end up in the new world? Will we all teleport to the same place and make our way into the world from there, will we end up in our originally chosen city or just randomly appear somewhere on the map with certain limitations to not trap some poor adventurer behind a L99 mob. I would hope to arrive in AAR in my adopted hometown.

Yoshi said that we don't log in at launch were we logged out at 11/1.
I guess we start in the chars starting city.